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On Saturday, a small group of activists carrying yellow Gadsden flags now associated with the Tea Party, assisted by a trooper from the Washington State Police, removed the flag of Communist China from the state capitol building in Olympia, Washington. The flag, according to reports, was placed between the U.S. flag and the state flag in honor of a meeting with Chinese Ambassador Cui Tiankai, the News Commenter said.

“That’s an officer I can support,” one person said of the trooper providing assistance. The officer remained unidentified in the video, but one activist said he was an Oath Keeper.

“Whoo,” one person cheered as the red Chinese flag began to be pulled down. Others stood on either side of the flagpoles, dipping their flags as the red banner was brought down. But as one commenter on YouTube noted, one activist incorrectly dipped the U.S. flag, something that goes against protocol.

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According to the flag code, “no other flag or pennant should be placed above or, if on the same level, to the right of the flag of the United States of America, except during church services conducted by naval chaplains at sea, when the church pennant may be flown above the flag during church services for the personnel of the Navy.” Additionally, the code says that flags of the United Nations or other national or international flags shall not be placed “equal, above, or in a position of superior prominence or honor to, or in place of, the flag of the United States…”

“Looks like Governor Jay Inslee needs to resign from office,” one commenter said at YouTube. Another suggested the Chinese flag be burned.

“We now know where the loyalties of our liberal, communist loving Governor are,” one person said on Facebook. “The people of Washington State has asked the governor to address our list of grievances and yet we have heard nothing from him.”

Inslee, the poster added, planned to discuss a range of issues related to trade, foreign direct investment and ongoing educational and cultural exchanges. “Washington currently exports more goods and services to China than any other state and it is our largest trading partner,” the post said.

A search of Inslee’s official government page revealed no mention of a meeting with Cui Tiankai. A Google search also revealed no mention of the meeting. Video of the flag being lowered can be seen above.

CHINA – a 38-year-old man leaped to his death after an argument with his girlfriend who insisted they continue shopping. CCTV captured Tao Hsiao and his girlfriend in a mall in Xuzhou, Jiangsu province, east China where they had reportedly been shopping for five hours or so before he hit his limit.

Eyewitnesses said Hsiao could be heard telling his girlfriend that they already had more bags than they could carry, but she insisted on hitting one more store where there was a sale on shoes.

An eyewitness said: “He told her she already had enough shoes, more shoes that she could wear in a lifetime, and it was pointless buying any more. She started shouting at him, accusing him of being a skinflint, and of spoiling Christmas. It was a really heated argument.”

The argument continued until Hsiao threw the bags on the floor and himself over the balcony, dropping seven stories to his death and smashing Christmas decorations on the way down. He was killed on impact.

A spokesman for the mall said: “His body was removed fairly quickly. He actually landed on one of the stalls below and then fell to the floor so although the store was damaged it meant he didn’t hit anybody.

“This is a tragic incident, but this time of year can be very stressful for many people.”

This might be one of the goofier examples of sloppy journalism in recent memory.

During ABC’s World News on Thursday evening, anchor Diane Sawyer read a quick story about a massive Chinese traffic jam just outside Beijing, reportedly “now entering its third week.” The traffic has come to such a standstill, Sawyer added, that truckers purchased noodle dishes from roadside villagers. Ultimately, the report concluded, the traffic will end around September 17th when the culprit – some major construction – is scheduled for completion.

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So what’s wrong with that story? Well, there’s one big problem: That ridiculously large traffic jam happened three years ago.

How did that embarrassing mistake make it all the way to Sawyer’s mouth?

The only 2013-dated articles on this “traffic jam” appear on the India Times website and on The Daily Beast’s “Cheat Sheet” link dump. The former’s write-up says the traffic has been ongoing for only nine days, so clearly that’s not the source. And given the Beast’s popularity in America, this little blurbcould be where ABC first spotted the story:

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It seems as though the Beast mistook the story to be current, but later updated their link-out with a correction: “Editor’s note: The traffic jam described in this news summary occured [sic] in August 2010.”

So let’s assume an ABC producer found the story there, but saw it before the Beast updated to reflect the actual date. They would still have had to completely ignore the time and date on the actual CBC article containing many of the details Sawyer reported on air.

How, then, did ABC obtain the oddly-specific information about the jam having gone on for three weeks? Looks like they saw the reports (again, ignoring all the 2010 timestamps) and saw that the traffic began on August 14th. And hey, it’s September 5th. So that means it’s been going on almost three whole weeks!

And how did ABC find information about it expecting to end September 17? The biggest source for that is a Wall Street Journal article – again, from 2010 – that notes the 17th as the construction’s end date.

In other words: Reporting this story likely took a producer eyeing not one, but multiple articles. And somehow… missing… the time and date… on each… and every one of them.

Chinese hackers have gained access to designs of more than two dozen major U.S. weapons systems, a U.S. report said on Monday, as Australian media said Chinese hackers had stolen the blueprints for Australia’s new spy headquarters.

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Citing a report prepared for the Defense Department by the Defense Science Board, the Washington Post said the compromised U.S. designs included those for combat aircraft and ships, as well as missile defenses vital for Europe, Asia and the Gulf.

Among the weapons listed in the report were the advanced Patriot missile system, the Navy’s Aegis ballistic missile defense systems, the F/A-18 fighter jet, the V-22 Osprey, the Black Hawk helicopter and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

The report did not specify the extent or time of the cyber-thefts or indicate if they involved computer networks of the U.S. government, contractors or subcontractors.

But the espionage would give China knowledge that could be exploited in a conflict, such as the ability to knock out communications and corrupting data, the Post said. It also could speed China’s development of its defense technology.

In a report to Congress this month, the Pentagon said China was using espionage to modernize its military and its hacking was a serious concern. It said the U.S. government had been the target of hacking that appeared to be “attributable directly to the Chinese government and military.”

China dismissed the report as groundless.

China also dismissed as without foundation a February report by the U.S. computer security company Mandiant, which said a secretive Chinese military unit was probably behind a series of hacking attacks targeting the United States that had stolen data from 100 companies.

AUSTRALIAN “SECURITY BLUNDER”

In Australia, a news report said hackers linked to China stole the floor plans of a A$630 million headquarters for the Australia Security Intelligence Organization, the country’s domestic spy agency.

The attack through the computers of a construction contractor exposed not only building layouts, but also the location of communication and computer networks, it said.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei, asked about the Australian report, said China disapproved of hacking.

“China pays high attention to the cyber security issue and is firmly opposed to all forms of hacker attacks,” Hong said at a daily briefing.

“Since it is very difficult to find out the origin of hacker attacks, it is very difficult to find out who carried out such attacks,” Hong said. “I don’t know what the evidence is for media to make such kinds of reports.”

Repeating China’s position that every country was susceptible to cyber attacks, Hong said nations should make joint efforts towards a secure and open Internet.

Australia security analyst Des Ball told the ABC that such information about the yet to be completed spy headquarters made it vulnerable to cyber attacks.

“You can start constructing your own wiring diagrams, where the linkages are through telephone connections, through wi-fi connections, which rooms are likely to be the ones that are used for sensitive conversations, how to surreptitiously put devices into the walls of those rooms,” said Ball.

The building is designed to be part of an electronic intelligence gathering network that includes the United States and Britain. Its construction has been plagued by delays and cost over-runs with some builders blaming late design changes on cyber attacks.

The ABC report said the Chinese hacking was part of a wave of cyber attacks against business and military targets in the close U.S. ally.

It said the hackers also stole confidential information from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, which houses the overseas spy agency, the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, and had targeted companies, including steel-manufacturer Bluescope Steel, and military and civilian communications manufacturer Codan Ltd.

The influential Greens party said the hacking was a “security blunder of epic proportions” and called for an inquiry, but the government did not confirm the breach.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the reports were “inaccurate”, but declined to say how.

Despite being one of Beijing’s major trade partners, Australia is seen by China as the southern fulcrum of a U.S. military pivot to the Asia-Pacific. In 2011, it agreed to host thousands of U.S. Marines in near-permanent rotation.

Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei was last year barred from bidding for construction contracts on a new Australian high-speed broadband network amid fears of cyber espionage.

The Reserve Bank of Australia said in March that it had been targeted by cyber attacks, but no data had been lost or systems compromised amid reports the hackers had tried to access intelligence negotiations among a Group of 20 wealthy nations.

The Obama administration is quietly allowing China to acquire major ownership interests in oil and natural gas resources across the U.S.

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The decision to allow China to compete for U.S. oil and natural gas resources appears to stem from a need to keep Beijing economically interested in lending to the U.S. The Obama administration has run $1-trillion-plus annual federal budget deficits since taking office that likely will continue in the second term.

Allowing China to have equity interests in U.S. energy production is a reversal of the Bush administration’s policy. In 2005, the Bush administration blocked China on grounds of national security from an $18.4 billion deal to purchase California-based Unocal Corp.

As WND reported Monday, Beijing has been developing a proposal in which real estate on American soil owned by China would be set up as “development zones” to establish Chinese-owned businesses and bring in its citizens to the U.S. to work.

China leased first oil rights in Texas

China’s first major move into the U.S. oil and natural gas market can be traced to October 2009, when the state-owned Chinese energy giant CNOOC bought a multi-million dollar stake in 600,000 acres of South Texas oil and gas fields.

China’s purchase of U.S. oil and natural gas rights will strike millions of Americans as paradoxical, since the U.S. continues to be a net importer of approximately 60 percent of the oil consumed in the U.S.

The Chronicle reported China paid $2.2 billion for a one-third stake in Chesapeake Energy assets, with CNOCC laying a claim to a share of energy resources in South Texas that could produce up to half a million barrels of oil per day.

The Houston paper reported that as part of the deal, CNOCC agreed to pay approximately $1.1 billion for a share of Chesapeake’s assets in the Eagle Ford, a broad oil and gas formation that runs southwest of San Antonio to the Mexican border.

The Chronicle also reported that the deal with China could create as many as 20,000 jobs in the U.S. and provide the capital Chesapeake needs to increase its rig count in South Texas from 10 to 42 by the end of 2012.

China’s oil interests

Along with CNOOC, which is 100-percent owned by the communist Chinese government, Sinopec Group also is purchasing energy interests in the U.S.

Sinopec Group is the largest shareholder of Sinopac Corporation, a state-owned investment company incorporated in 1998 largely to acquire and operate oil and natural gas interests worldwide.

The Wall Street Journal reported China’s strategy – implemented since 2010 by Fu Chengyu, who has served as chairman of both CNOOC and Sniopec – is to “seek minority stakes, play a passive role, and, in a nod to U.S. regulators, keep Chinese personnel at arm’s length from advanced U.S. technology.”

China moving into Gulf of Mexico

After a difficult political struggle, China received permission last month from the Canadian government to make its largest overseas acquisition of oil and natural gas interests outside China, acquiring Canadian energy producer Nexen Inc. for $15.5 billion. In the process, China acquired Nexen oil and natural gas operations in the Gulf of Mexico in U.S. waters.